Rhizome stout erect or suberect, short, woody, rarely forming above ground; the apex densely clothed with stiff scales, 0.2-0.3 cm at their bases, 1.1-1.5(-2) cm long and tapering to apices, entire, shiny dark reddish brown, usually with an almost black central zone and a narrow reddish brown margin. Fertile and sterile fronds similar on the adaxial surface, erect, often very large, 1-2 m or longer and 30-100 cm or wider. Stipes relatively short, 3-12 cm, very robust, usually shiny, deeply pigmented to a dark reddish or purple brown, often pale pinkish brown on the deeply grooved adaxial face, scales at the base linear or similar to those on the rhizome. Lamina ovate or deltoid, in living material dark green above, grey green on abaxial surface, pinnate, 6-21 or more pairs of pinnae plus a similar number of small auricles spaced 3-5 cm apart down the rhachis below the pinnae, the laminas of juvenile plants are narrowly elliptic, entire to irregularly lobed. Rhachis and costae similarly coloured to the stipes at the base, becoming paler brown (sometimes green in fresh specimens) towards the lamina apex, sometimes the rhachis is very darkly pigmented, especially on the terete abaxial face. Sterile pinnae oblong-narrowly elliptic, apices abruptly narrowed to form an acuminate apex, cuneate at base, 23-50 or more by 1.9-4.3 cm wide, sessile or subpetiolate at the lamina base becoming semi-adnate and decurrent basiscopically towards the lamina apex, thinly coriaceous to papery, entire, sometimes finely revolute especially in dried specimens, veins fine, less than 0.1 cm apart at the costa, single or once forked and curving upwards at the margins to terminate in a minute submarginal gland, basal pinnae abruptly reduced in size to minute distantly spaced auricles, apical pinnae as large as or larger than the subapical. Fertile pinnae similar, but with sori on abaxial face, orange-brown, very narrow (1 mm), linear and close to either side of and not exceeding the width of the costa and not usually extending to extremities; at maturity the sori remain narrow. Spores 39.9 by 29.3 µm (from 8 herbarium specimens), perine sparsely costate beneath a rugulose envelope, scabrous, tuberculate or microrugulose between costae, exine smooth to scabrous.
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